Amelia Edith Barr (1831 - 1919) was a British American novelist. After the death of her husband and several children in Texas she moved with her three remaining daughters to New York City in 1869 where she began to write for religious periodicals and to publish a series of semi-historical tales and novels. Set in New York this is the story of religiously devoted young men and women falling in love and then coming to grips with realities. An excerpt reads, ""THE thing that I know least about is my beginning. For it is possible to introduce Ethel Rawdon in so many picturesque ways that the choice is embarrassing, and forces me to the conclusion that the actual circumstances, though commonplace, may be the most suitable. Certainly the events that shape our lives are seldom ushered in with pomp or ceremony; they steal upon us unannounced, and begin their work without giving any premonition of their importance.""